updated 05:05 pm EST, Tue December 16, 2008

Hercules DJ Control Steel

Hercules on Tuesday announced the upcoming availability of its DJ Control Steel digital dual mixing deck. The portable deck is powered by a computer's USB port and supports AIFF, MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG and audio CD formats. The included Virtual DJ 5 DJC edition software allows direct access to iTunes playlists. The deck has MIDI control capabilities, and two mixing decks with equalizer and volume knobs. A pair of jog wheels has adjustable resistance, and there are 13 rotary switches and six faders with one general volume fader. Of the 46 pushbuttons, five serve to introduce effects while six are kill buttons.

The DJ Control Steel can be used with other DJing software programs that use MIDI instructions. The new Hercules deck is compatible with Windows XP and Vista 32- and 64-bit, as well as Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5. The digital mixer will be available on December 22nd, priced at nearly $300.